Zaycon Foods Chicken Review *UPDATED!*

After you read my review of Zaycon Foods I recommend reading the comments, lots of people have shared their Zaycon experiences and not all of them are good (or bad…)
-MegThis review is not sponsored & was not solicited in any manner. I was not compensated in any way for my opinions.

Hold on to your hats, people! I am about to share what I seriously think is the first negative review of Zaycon Foods! I’ve scoured the internet and have not managed to find one person with one negative thing to say about their Zaycon experience. Don’t worry though, my review is not ALL negative!

Zaycon Foods is a company that brings wholesale buying power to the public. They negotiate with meat suppliers to sell large cases of meat at a discounted price. I ordered one case of chicken, 40 lbs of BLSL breast, at $1.79/lb, or $71.60. When it’s delivery day you drive to the pick-up area you chose and they load it into your car.

Zaycon came highly recommended to me by friends and I was unable to find one negative thing on the web. The price was amazing for my area considering the non-sale price of BLSL chicken breast here is $5.49/lb. I almost always refuse to pay more than $2.99/lb but that deal only comes around every 3-4 months. Twice a year BLSL chicken breast will drop to $1.99/lb and I’ll buy 30-40 lbs if the store hasn’t run out by the time I get there.

I was almost irrationally excited when I placed my order. My family eats a lot of chicken and it’s so darned versatile to boot. Part of the reason I went ahead and ordered was because the pick-up date fell on a day when I was available, and at a time I was available. Since I had to drive 45 minutes from my home to my pick-up place it needs to fall on the right day and time. That only seems logical, right? After discussing it with my husband on February 24th I ordered one 40lb case of BLSL chicken breast with a pick-up date of March 8th at 1:00pm.

A week before pick-up I received an email saying the date was changed to March 7th at 1:00pm. Ok, this was a bit of a problem since I had an appointment an hour away at 2pm, but I could make it work if I was there at exactly 1pm. At 12:39pm I was just 3 miles from the pick-up site when I received a text message saying the order was delayed and pick-up was now 5:30pm. Excuse me? They sent the message 21 minutes before pick-up time??

I pulled over and called Zaycon. I explained them what a hassle it was, that I was already in town and I could not spare the time and gas money to drive back, besides that I had to have my kid at dance class at 5:30. The representative, Tammy, was very nice and asked if I could find someone else to get the order in exchange for a $10 credit on my account. I was told I cannot get a refund but if I cancelled my order I could be issued a partial credit. I called my husband and he said he could manage to break away from work early and get it on his way home, even though it wasn’t on the way.

When 4:30 came around I received another text message saying the time was again changed to 7pm. Nope, no way. I called Zaycon again..and again…and again…and again…no answer or voicemail. I emailed them and told them under no circumstances was I driving back to get the chicken at 7 pm and I wanted a full refund, not a credit.

Around 6:00pm I finally managed to get someone from Zaycon on the phone. Suzanne explained to me that the pick-up date was changed to March 13th from 5:30-6pm and that I could get a credit to my account, not a refund, if the date came and I couldn’t make it.

Grrrrrreat. Throughout the night I received no less than 3 emails from Zaycon with information that contradicted what Suzanne told me.

Judging from the messages on Zaycon’s Facebook page and the emails we received, this was a problem all over the state of Florida that day. Zaycon apologized but insists it wasn’t their fault because they don’t own the processing plant or truck and don’t employ the driver. See, in my book, if I pay you money and you don’t deliver it doesn’t matter where the fault lies, I’m going to be upset and you’d darn well better try to fix it.

That evening I posted on Zaycon’s Facebook page asking if the chicken we were getting on the 13th now was the same chicken that “dropped off the face of the earth” today (Zaycon’s words, not mine!) or if it was going to be freshly processed. Zaycon replied that the chicken would be the same but that it had a 14 day shelf life and would only be 7 days old on the 13th.

The evening of the 12th I received a call from Suzanne reminding me that pick-up was still on for the next day at 5:30pm. The next day my husband left work early to pick-up the chicken. He said pick-up was painless and careful, the people loading the chicken even laid plastic in his trunk before putting the chicken in. **See, I said not everything was going to be negative**

When hubby returned home I started to process the chicken and was generally pleased. The breasts are butterflied so I was breaking each into two pieces and packaging in groups of 3 to freeze.

All was going well until I got to the 4th breast and found this:

Yup, green chicken with a funky skin forming. Would you feed this to your family?

And this:

Yup, chicken covered in fat. I figured this might happen with one or two breasts, but this amount of fat was on every third or fourth breast. (Zaycon’s statement on chicken fat can be found on their website and states: “Chicken breasts typically come in double-lobed pairs (“butterfly”) and will have small attached amounts of fat”) Oh, and the chicken was turning green under this fat.

And then I found 6 of these:

Yup, chicken tenders. Getting a few chicken tenders isn’t an issue except I didn’t order chicken tenders. I assume they were throwin in to make weight but I would have rather had an extra breast or two thrown in.

I emailed Zaycon and explained the situation and attached these photos. I have yet to hear back from them but when I do I’ll post an update.

Will I order from Zaycon again??? Maybe. If they can actually stick to their initial delivery date and time so I know I’m getting fresh chicken I will give them another try. If I order again and the date or time is changed, even once, I’m demanding a refund and I’m out.

**Updated update – 3/20/12 – I received this in my inbox this morning:

http://impro.biz/Zaycon_apology.php**

**UPDATE!! 3/17/2012 – Today I received an apology from Zaycon, here’s an excerpt:

“We use three major farms due to the fact that we approve of the processes they use
to grow/produce the chicken. While the farms do vary a bit, the product we
receive should be jumbo, boneless, skinless breasts. Many factors play into
the end product. Weather and environment greatly affect the growth of the
chickens. Regardless of all these issues, we strive to offer a large,
delicious breast, ready to be frozen. Considering the volume we do,
occasionally there is a case or two that is not up to our standards. Our
sincere apologies that your case is one of them.”

They then offered me a $25 refund OR credit, which is fair considering I was able to use most of the chicken. I opted for a refund to my card because I’m not convinced I’ll be ordering from them again.***

112 thoughts on “Zaycon Foods Chicken Review *UPDATED!*”

Thank you for posting your experience. I only found out about Zaycon last evening and started perusing the web to find out more information. It is helpful to hear about the good with the not so good experiences with this company.

I have to say I’ve only ever had one experience with Zaycon and it was to purchase bacon and I had no problems whatsoever. They were friendly, courteous and extremely helpful. They put the box right in my car for me with no hassle and there were no problems with dates changing. The bacon was also excellent (seriously yummy!) and my parents and I both loved it (we split the order).

I only add this because you wrote about it on your old site, I am not part of the Zaycon “private bloggers club.” I just really did have a good experience with them and think that it’s nice for others to see a different take!

I didn’t have a good experience with my first ever Zaycon either and found their customer service not to be very helpful. I purchase Breaded Chicken tenders. I received a hugh amount of breading in the bottom of each sack. I emailed customer service and never got a reply until I posted a negative comment on Face Book (which was somehow taken off within hours) I received an email from Rose saying they never got my emails and could only give me a partial credit if I sent pictures and than she changed her offer in another email to if I donated the chicken to a food bank I could get partial credit than yet another email saying she received the pictures and I would get partial credit She seemed to send emails randomly each saying something diffrent. I really don’t think I will order from them again. The chicken was so very salty not the no additives they promised at all an there was so much breading. AND because they delet any negative postings you really don’t know how their products really are. I did finale get a full credit but I wanted a refund now I am force to order again and take my chances. :/

I have bought chicken breasts once from Zaycon (read about them on another blog) and have recently placed my 2nd order. I am in Minnesota. I had absolutely no problems with the ordering or pick-up process. Having to be somewhere at 8am wasn’t terribly convenient, but it worked in my schedule that day. I also found that I had to spend the better part of a day trimming fat and preparing the chicken to use my vacuum sealer to package for freezing. They were certainly not the boneless skinless breasts I get from Costco or my regular grocery store. I did think the chicken tasted fine and the price was about $1.20/pound cheaper than at Costco, the cheapest non-sale price I had otherwise found. They also were GINORMOUS – many of the breast halves were about over a pound each. We’ll see how this next order goes. I am hoping to plan a freezer meal cooking day to coincide with the delivery. Ultimately I’ll have to decide whether the low price is worth the time spent picking it up and processing it — kind of a toss up right now.

I have been purchasing Zaycon chicken for about two years now, and every box has been wonderful. I have never experienced any of the issues you describe, wow! I have been very thankful for all of our awesome chicken, recently we hit some hard times financially and I got very creative with our chicken, because it was all we had. I honestly am placing another order today and every time I place an order, I poke around online for reviews. Yours is the only negative one still!

Honestly, I think there are a lot of positive reviews because in 2011 & 2012 Zaycon send hundreds (thousands?) of bloggers free cases of chicken to review. Also, Zaycon has a referral program, and if bloggers put positive things people are more likely to sign-up under them, meaning more free meat.

I’m not one of those bloggers, LOL, so I feel more inclined to be totally honest in my review. I’m not saying the other bloggers weren’t, I’m sure their chicken was just fine and they had no trouble. That wasn’t my experience though :)

I certainly think overall the meats are just fine. I also truly, truly believe that what happened in our case isn’t something that will happen again. I also realize that it’s still a better bet than not knowing where your supermarket meat came from or how it was stored (I worked in grocery stores, I know what happens behind the scenes and it’s sometimes scary!)

I still haven’t used the $10 credit they gave me (mentioned in the article) because I just haven’t wanted their ham and bacon and I found a cheaper place for chicken. I still think they could have handled the customer service part a little better when the chicken went missing, but I am glad they were honest in telling me that I’d be receiving the same chicken, just a week late.

Hi, Meg! Thanks for this post (which I initially found on your old site). I am heading out to pick up my Zaycon order this morning first thing, and I am glad to be aware (even if only now) to keep an eye out for the things you’ve mentioned in this post.

As for how I found your old site- I googled Zaycon to get directions and your link came up on the first page of Google. So, maybe somehow Google is bumping this up for you rather than the negative commentators? Not sure- but just wanted to explain how I found you. I’ll be visiting your new site now!

Hi Meg,
thank you for an honest review! Like Boysberries comment above, I was thinking of ordering my first ever order with ZAYCON and decided to look for reviews. I googled it and your review on the OLD site popped up at the top of the returns. Your new site might be there on the returns, I just never looked past the first three or four. Anyway – just wanted to let you know how I found you, and why others might have been directed to your old site instead of the new one. I may still place an order – haven’t decided yet – but greatly appreciate finding your review and knowing what sort of thing I might need to watch out for (especially poor customer service!). Have a great day!

I picked up my first Zaycon order yesterday. It was the BLSL chicken breast. Pick up was very easy. I was very disappointed when I got home and opened the case. They say there are no hormones but, they are the largest chicken breast I have ever seen! That is always a sign that they are given hormones. I was a chef for many years and I know it is just NOT NATURAL FOR CHICKEN BREAST TO BE THAT LARGE! I just don’t trust their suppliers. I won’t be buying from them again. My families health is more important than saving money!!!

Actually, it is illegal for any chicken grower in the US to give their chickens hormones. So it is impossible for the chicken to have hormones in it. The chickens are bred to grow large breasts. They are actual specific breeds of chickens.

I used to raise chickens for our family. Some for laying eggs, while others were fryers. It is suggested that you process your fryers at 6-8 weeks but we always waited an additional 2-3 weeks to get a little more meat. Our feed was a natural feed without hormones. We did add corn to their diet in the last two weeks to add to the flavor of what fat they had. (We also gave a little corn to our layers to add to the richness of their yolk color.) Adding the additional 2-3 weeks gave us larger pieces of meat and didn’t change the quality of the meat within that window of time. At 6-8 weeks we had 5-7lb chickens…the extra time gave us 8-10lb chickens.

Chickens can not legally be fed hormones. That is a southern grown hen so that variety is always huge! The green tint is from the muscles dieing under the skin while the chicken was alive. It’s not something you can see until after processing.

I found out that their beef cattle is fed with soy and corn, both are GMO raised in this county. Also was told that farmers use growth hormone that is supposedly gotten rid of by a 120 day step down program. I know that the beef tasted great but don’t want pipe a ton of GMO fed beef to my family. If one looks at the possible side effects of GMO feed beef and antibiotic and growth hormone fed beef one would understand why so many are sick. I will no longer purchase anything except organic. Zaycom sell organic certified and I will buy once again.

I wanted to leave an updated review as I just picked up my second Zaycon order yesterday.

1. There were no problems at all with picking up my order (other than that I had to get out of bed early to drive to pick it up).
2. The chicken was again the two 1/2 breasts still connected and lots of extra fat and “stuff” to trim off. I ended up with a bit over 10lbs of waste material. (We no longer have a dog, but if we did I’d have reprocessed this for dog treats or something.) I had no use for this, so I threw it out. This means that my cost for the chicken we could actually eat was approximately $2.38/lb.
3. My husband and I planned a freezer cooking day around this purchase. We were able to get 17 meals out of the box, using 5 or 6 recipes. My husband hates touching raw chicken so I did all the trimming, slicing and cutting and this took me 3-4 hours. From start to finish we both worked about 8 hours on the entire process.
4. We live in Minnesota, and the weather was 30-40 degrees yesterday. Because of this I was able to leave the big box of chicken in the trunk for a few hours until my husband brought it in to start the cooking session. We also kept cut/sliced pieces in covered bowls in our porch to keep chilled until ready for them. I note this because someone who lives in a warm area and doesn’t have an enormous fridge/freezer may have some trouble processing all this meat before it gets dodgy on you. As it was, we still felt we were cutting it close!
5. We bought a new Food Saver at Costco this week in preparation for the purchase. (Our old one had died.) I do recommend having one of these or some way to minimize freezer burn. I can say that the chicken from my original purchase last October has done great in the freezer in the Food Saver packages — no freezer burn at all. It has a nice texture and tastes good in recipes.
6. I do think perhaps the other commenter is right about the chicken being exposed to antibiotics because the pieces ARE huge.

So after all of this, I’m yet again undecided whether I’ll purchase again. The actual price of $2.38 is cheaper than the regular Costco prices (about $2.89/lb.), but not as good as I can occasionally find on sale at local stores ($1.89 to $1.99/lb.). It’s a LOT of work to process all this chicken at once. You definitely need a full afternoon or evening to trim and prepare this for freezing. If I do purchase from Zaycon again, I’m not sure I’d do a freezer cooking session. Rather, I’d probably just use my Food Saver to make meal-sized portions of plain chicken for the freezer — which is not quite as much of a time-saver as we’d hoped to accomplish with freezer cooking but still nice to have on hand.

I have been debating giving Zaycon a try. Just wanted to say I found this page helpful…it has been hard to find anything negative, which makes ya wonder. With all products, there is going to be at least a few negative remarks because nothing is perfect!

Well we picked up our chicken on April 17th 2013. the breasts ALL had Full skins and some even had bones in them There was a grey slimy matter on them to top it off. It wasn’t cold when I picked it up. They told me to discard it and offered a full refund, but EVERYONE I talked to said their chicken was the same. However, after the lady (Rose) even laughed at my sister on the phone. Tell me what kind of customer service is that. They advertise boneless, skinless breast and that is what it should be not yucky slimy chicken! :(

I’m sorry! Someone else mentioned Rose in comments, my guess is she’s not the most helpful customer service person ;) It’s a family-owned company though, they probably can’t/won’t deal with that issue. Do you have a GFS around you? I found their cases of chicken to be better and cheaper, plus the 40lb case is divided into (4) 10 lb bags so it’s easier to process.

I’ve ordered from Zaycon 3 times now & thankfully, I haven’t had any problems. OK, well, one email sent to customer service never got a response, but I found my answer elsewhere. I appreciate seeing the less-than-perfect reviews though; no way any company can be perfect. Meg, what is a GFS?

Wheater plays a role in the freshness of the chicken. With cold temperatures in Colorado the chicken delivery to us is always fresh even with delays on delivery dates. Usually, this delivery places are organized my “churh people” I may suggest you to get in touch with some of the church members, they are usually friendly and very service oriented. A church member may be able to pick up your order if you are far away from the place of delivery? I had done that for other people in the pass without problems. Again, weather is an issue. You can provide a large cooler with ice to the person picking up your order, in advance. :) Price is unbeatible.

Meg, thanks for your review. I also landed on your old site through a Google search for Zaycon reviews. I’ve been curious about the company and was also skeptical about the lack of negative reviews. I know there are companies that can be hired to scour the Internet and remove negative reviews. I suspect that may be happening. I’m also very skeptical of their use of the word ‘natural’. It means nothing in the food world and can be used freely regardless of what is in or used on food. The size of their chicken breasts is a huge red flag for the use of hormones as Crystal mentioned. After reading your post and the comments, I will not be ordering from Zaycon. That old saying comes to mind…if it sounds too good to be true…

I’m on the fence about buying again from Zaycon and part of it is that I am skeptical of their claims too. They say their beef is grass fed, but I can’t find anything that lists the farms or suppliers they use. They seem very proud of the quality of their food so it seems like they would want to share where it’s coming from. My hunch is that they are simply buying in bulk from a supplier who is providing all the ‘grass fed, no pink slime’ verbiage and the reality is that Zaycon doesn’t know where the meat actually comes from.

Here’s the thing…Zaycon’s beef is grass-fed but it’s switched to grain when it hits 700lbs, which means by the time it reaches weight for slaughter the benefits of being grass-fed are mostly gone. Grass-fed but grain-finished beef is only marginally better than all grain-fed, basically it just means the cow is a few months older when it hits slaughter weight.

Did you know Aldi just started carrying grass-fed beef? I don’t know if it’s grass-finished as when I went to the store yesterday they had sold out. It’s $4.49/lb nationwide.

That’s good to know. I think I’ll pass on Zaycon. Between this and the fact that the owner went off the deep on their FB page when people started asking about pink slime when that story broke, I don’t think I feel good about buying from them.

The boxes that I have received all come from National Beef which is on it’s second recall in about 2 months.. I have posted a reply about it below, and how they have prevented me from commenting on their FB page about it….

Yes, and if it does match they are legally obligated to issue a refund and take the beef back. I am so glad I found this blog before I purchased the chicken. This beef will be the last item I purchase from them. I had already purchased it before I found this blog. I didn’t even consider a recall issue when purchasing from them…Once the truck rolls away they do not have store fronts to walk into…

Glad I found this review. I just heard about Zaycon yesterday and was told it was all natural. After hearing from others about how large the breasts are, I wouldn’t even try it now. Bigger is not better, folks. Not only are these chickens with larger breasts given hormones, but they become so large that they can’t even move and are usually housed in cramped chicken houses where they don’t get to move around anyways. Just because Zaycon knows where they got these chicken breasts from doesn’t mean that you know where they came from. It’s extremely important for me to know where my food comes from. I gave a larger family to feed, but cheap food prices only create higher medical expenses. I’d rather pay 2 or 3 times as much for a local, humanely and safely raised chicken. Thanks for the review and thank you to the commenters who mentioned the giant breasts. You have helped me make my decision NOT to try Zaycon.

Thanks for all the info. I was planning on placing an order but this info got me thinking. My local Kroger is offering fresh boneless chicken breasts for $1.89/lb. which beats all the prices mentioned.
Also, if anything is wrong they make good on it by refunding your money and replacing the product. I was planning on getting a chest freezer which I will still get but I’ll deal locally. I think I will feel more comfortable. No driving, cancelling and suspect product.

I have used Zaycon once thus far, just found out about them this year. We purchased the Hickory Smoked Bacon and it seems fine to us. I went online looking for complaints about the company because no one has a perfect track record. They are hard to find for sure. I found your old blog first, but clicked the link to end up here.
My hesitation in buying in the BLSL chicken event is the fact that they are large. My pause is that a chicken does not get large on it’s own, it has to be plumped up with hormones. I was wanting to purchase 80lbs our first go around but now I am having second thoughts on it. I do not like doing business with a company that refuses to give or gives a hard time refunding money. Nor do I like receiving something that is not what the company actually says it’s supposed to be. Our area chicken event just came up and I am seriously, probably not going to buy now because of the reviews from this blog. Thank you for being honest.

I order meat from Zaycon foods for 2 years now and just recently have had an interesting experience. On 7/31/13 at around 11 pm. I asked them about this 50,000 lb beef recall from National Beef (the supplier that is always on the box of any ground beef I order) on their Facebook page. A gentleman had commented as well on my post that his boxes matched the USDA inspection code given in the article that indeed it was part of the recall. Zaycon replied to my question on their page and said that “their meat was not affected”, but also said (this is not current). I don’t know what they mean by that, as this article is dated 7/31/13..After seeing their reply, I tried to comment again to let them know the date of the article only to realize that they had deleted the entire post and blocked me from commenting on their page… This disturbs me greatly as all the ground beef I have ordered from Zaycon foods the last 2 years comes from National Beef. If they have nothing to hide why delete the post and then block me? Shouldn’t they be concerned as well? This is worrisome to me and I just wanted to get it out there, as I can imagine most people that have ordered beef through them recently will be concerned and asking questions.

Thank you for the info Mary. I don’t think asking questions about pink slime should provoke a company to be rude to anyone. Which is what concerns me the most. Transparency in a company does not involve bullying people who are concerned for their health. They have certainly lost my families business, and I will be passing the info along to ALL my referrals.

I posted on Zaycon FB page and made a couple comments on other people’s posts as well. Their 93/7 product code 7004 is the one included in this recall. If your beef is not stamped with this number, then your beef will be okay. If it is stamped with this product code the Zaycon needs to refund your money because they are our “store” of purchase. Whether they want to issue that refund is the story. I also asked them to comment on the recall, as of this post, they have not replied to my comment or other people’s comments…

Honestly, I lost all trust for Zaycon after the pink slime incident. The person who monitors their FB page was NASTY, I remember that. I understand them deleting comments on their page that are mean-spirited, but some of the things they deleted just simply asked “Does your beef contain pink slime?”

Yes Meg, I understand as well! Which is why I was so confused why my comment was deleted after asking if their beef was part of the recall. I didn’t think a simple question would get such a response! They should be putting the word out themselves of a recall and either reassuring that their meat isn’t affected or asking customers to check their chubs of meat. I’m just quite sad about the fact that it seems they are more interested in money than anything else :( I see the are doing damage control on their page now, but I also see that William, who had commented on my original post stated he sees that posts are being deleted and it’s a “shame”… Again, I’m blocked and cannot comment on their page. I only wish I had a screenshot of my original conversation but hindsight is always 20/20…

So far they have responded to my posts on their FB page and so far it’s still up for readers. I also made a screen shot and saved their response to me regarding a full refund just incase they decide to remove my posts..

Some people mentioned the too large to be natural breasts. It is illegal to give chicken hormones *but* I do believe they were unnaturally helped to grow to their size. Zaycon uses the biggest suppliers for their chicken and the industry standard is to use low dose antibiotics and arsenic in feed to promote growth, for some reason they have the same effect as hormones. Arsenic has been used since the 40s and while there is a voluntary halt of sales of one brand of arsenic for poultry feed, the same company makes a different brand of arsenic (other companies do as well) so it is just business a usual with a pretense of “we are not doing this anymore.”
I asked Zaycon specifically about this but they (also Rose) did not answer my specific questions. She did say the hens get antibiotics when they need it based on the USDA vet’s decision and she also said the broilers are raised indoors. It is legal to include arsenic and antibiotics in the feed and I would imagine a company that is not following the industry standard would announce it loudly and be able to sell their clean birds for more money (with happy buyers!!)
Someone asked on FB if the chicken was antibiotic free and fed GMO free and the representative said yes! I asked about that since they advertise neither and Rose’s response also said they do not guarantee GMO free feed! No reply! It was a blatant lie and I could not believe it was not corrected. People are buying the meat thinking it’s organic or chemical free but if you carefully read their wording, they are not making those claims. It is VERY disturbing.

Thank you for your review Meg! I loved reading the comments and decided against buying from Zaycon Foods, ever. Between hearing of bad customer service, your experience, the no refunds policy, which I have never heard of before from any company, the pink slime!?!? and how large the breasts are from comments here, which is unnatural any which way you try to sell it, I feel relieved to have this knowledge, so glad I found this review!! Thank you ever so much for sharing/posting it.

Wow! Sorry to hear about that horrible experience! I live in WA and heard about zaycon through a homeschooling co-op. I have ordered two different batches of the boneless skinless chicken breasts and had perfect experiences both times. Also I have never been rescheduled for delivery. My last batch which I bought in the spring was fattier than the first but as my husband pointed out that may have been because the chickens were fattier in the winter with what they were fed. I just ordered a double batch

To freeze for the winter. Your review kind of scares me but being at the opposite end of the States from you and seeing as they pull from local suppliers I think maybe we just had higher quality up here.

They might have pulled from local suppliers at one point, but if you email or call them now, they will tell you the hens come from the biggest national suppliers, which are mostly located in the South. None of their suppliers are anywhere near WA. The feed is the same year round. Zaycon also told me the chickens are raised completely indoors (with climate control, I assume.) Rose provided me with all of this information.

PS – I raise layers and broilers and they need twice the feed when it’s cold. Nobody would raise them for meat in the winter unless they were in an indoor heated facility. It would cost too much to make it worth it.

I wanted to thank you, and all the commenters for sharing their experiences. I performed a Google search on Zaycon Foods Reviews and your old blog came up. I clicked on link to this one and arrived to read all this information. Y’all’s experiences helped me to decide whether I would use this company or not. Thank you!

I really, really just want to thank you for your negative review. I also did a Zaycon review search and found your site. I was so close to buying a case of chicken and after reading everyone’s responses I chose not to. I hope that Zaycon will take everyone’s experiences and thoughts into serious consideration. I will not support a company that isn’t completely honest and won’t back up their own product. I think you have saved me a lot of trouble, I will stick to the grocery store sales at $1.89 lb. Thanks

I came across your old site while doing a Google search for “Zaycon Foods reviews”, and I followed your link to this one to read the newer comments.

Apparently we’ve been luck so far … we’ve ordered Zaycon’s chicken three times now, and their ground beef once, and the only bad experience we’ve had was the second chicken order when they shifted their pick-up time twice. The quality of the chicken has been quite good, tho I admit I’m also slightly concerned about the size. While their web site does say that they explicitly ask for the larger breasts from the processing facilities, I do have to wonder how they get that large.

We live in the Midwest area and ordered three cases of chicken and out of all that chicken just two breasts looked like they were a little mangled. The pick up was painless and quick. Would order again.
As for the green tinge you had in your order not certain what caused that someone mentioned arsenic but the chickens are organic

I don’t know how the chicken in the Midwest is, but in FL it is definitely not organic. It is all natural, meaning no antibiotic use, but Zaycon doesn’t claim that it’s organic. I’m not sure they could offer organic chicken for $1.79/lb.

As for arsenic, even organically grown chickens can come in contact with it. Arsenic is naturally occurring in our environment and exposure is more common than most people realize.

I just got a new order of chicken and the breasts were, literally, turkey breast size. I can’t prove it but there has to be some growth hormone addition going on there. I cannot tell anyone if that is safe or not, everyone can make their own decision.

My only other comment on our latest pick-up on 10/11/13 is that the breasts were nearly completely frozen when we got them. Not a big deal, just a pain in the butt to process them.

It was very cool of Zaycon to give me a case of chicken to donate to a local family in need :-) I picked up and processed the chicken, and will be delivering it to them 10lbs at a time as I have a 2nd freezer and they don’t :-)

Just a note on size of chicken breasts. We have raised 4-H meat chickens to show at the county fair. These chickens are not fed any hormones! They may be bio-engineered. We get them as chicks and within 48 days they are so big that at times they cannot stand to eat. They lay down and eat out of the feed tray that way. If you startle them they may suffer a heart attack. About the max days you can keep them before slaughter is less than 50 days. After that it is likely they will have physical problems due to the weight.

We live on a farm and raise our own organic meats. Cornish Cross meat birds grow at a rate three times what other birds grow. It is easy to get the large breasts on the Cornish Cross bird but only if you let it grow to the full 8 weeks which producers do not do. I think they butcher at 5 weeks or so because those birds start eating a huge amount of food after 5 weeks of age. We charge $4.50 per pound for the whole bird with feeding them a strict organic diet (no hormones, no antibiotics, no GMO’s and no arsenic in their feed) and we barely make ends meet. But the plus is that we have a freezer full of meat to eat (beef, pork, chicken, turkey) that we get from our processing and that is considered by us as our profit. If you want organic meats you have to find a farmer who raises them that way (grass fed and chemical free) but if you buy from a huge corporation there will be no guarantee of the true organic status. The general public does not know that the Federal guidelines allow producers to feed antibiotics and such to their birds if they need it and they do not have to advertise it because it still fits into the Federal guidelines. Read the Federal Regulations on Organic standards and you will be really alarmed!

I was looking for some Zaycon reviews. Some of the post are very informative. Others..well.
To Fred and Susan great post.
general rule is
Cornish cross; meat bird
brown egg layers are dual purpose; meat and egg birds
white egg layers; egg laying birds
Cornish cross will eat themselves to death if the food is not regulated.

I just wanted to comment on the large size of the breasts. Most chicken producers grow breeds that mature very quickly, thus they weigh around 5 lbs per chicken when slaughtered. So we get used to tiny breasts in our store packages. There are many chicken breeds much larger. The bigger the chicken, the older the chicken, the larger the portions are naturally (naturally as after taking into account selective breeding for size). Since they say the chicken comes from the Mid-West and South mostly, it wouldn’t be that fresh trucked to me on the West Coast, where we have our own industry. I too just heard about this company and find it difficult to imagine their refund policy being something I want to deal with, in addition to the questions about artificially enhancing the birds to make them get bigger, and the boxes not being as described every time. I would need a day off work to can all that chicken and also don’t want to risk late orders. I decided to pass on them and search out an alternative. I want to thank everyone for their honesty.

I’m so glad to hear REAL reviews of Zaycon. I was suckered into one of their big boxes of chicken too. The quality was much worse than what I can get at my local market for $1.89 lb. It was partially frozen with hunks of fat and a lot of liquid. I know what bulk chicken looks like, and this was poor quality bulk chicken. I contacted them twice with no reply until I used their Facebook page and my post was then deleted (like others). They gave me a $23.00 credit that sat in my account for 1 1/2 yrs, now I’m finally going to use it up on the ham. Crossing my fingers that it will be decent. Then I’ll be done with them.

I can buy the same exact chicken at our local Cash n’ Carry which sells to local restaurants for under $1.69 per lb. Its frozen too boot. When I purchased from Zaycon before I found out the same box of 40 lb chicken was at my local Cash n’ Carry, it too was also partially frozen. I would never buy either one again as both had lots of fat and a ton of liquid in the bottom. Zaycon is just a gimmic.

See, now I have ordered from Zaycon multiple times with no issue whatsoever. I’ve ordered blsl thighs, blsl breasts, 93/7 ground beef, bacon, and fresh pork sausage. I haven’t had any issues with my date/time being changed. I haven’t ever experienced poor quality. Some of the thighs were not all huge, but it’s not a big deal because I package and free by weight, and myself or my kids will each smaller ones anyways. My items have never arrived frozen. They do arrive “rough” in a plastic bag and there are natural juices to handle, but the point of saving through them is from the farm to your table without all the middle man stuff. Additionally, when I was running late to a pick up, they called me on my cell to make sure everything was okay and waited for me because I was stuck in traffic. I’ll continue to order from them!

Everyone needs to know that all corn feed is GMO in the United States. I believe thirteen other countries have outlawed GMO’s but not the United States. GMO is illegal in Europe. If the chickens are fed corn to at the end of their growing stage, which I suspect they are, then they are GMO. You may choose to be ok with this, but you need to know.

i have seen breast that are huge and them be hormone free. Cornish cross have huge breast in 8 weeks. i have grown them myself. so it is possible to hormone free. i recently ordered from zaycon foods. i ordered chicken back in July. it was to arrive Oct 9th. email stating i had to wait till the 24th of Oct. then yesterday i received one saying it was now on Oct 30th. do i dare dream of the chicken coming in on the 30th?

As far as I could tell, the quality is good (I tossed some in the crockpot for tonight, that will be the real test!). The breasts were huge. Yes, there was fat, but no more than I’d get at the grocery store.

$1.78/lb is a pretty good deal. It’s rare for me to find anything less than $1.99 at the store, and even that is rare.

There was only one date change (from a Tuesday at 8 to a different Tuesday at 8.) All in all, it took about 1.5 hours to process (including cleanup after, the box leaked as I was carrying it in, and I needed to bleach my vacuum sealer).

That said, I don’t expect to buy again. I like chicken, but am not a fan of handling raw meat. I can get frozen chicken breasts or tenders for $2.50 a pound (approximately) from Trader Joe’s or Costco, or a whole chicken at $2 a pound (free range) from the foo foo grocery store.

well after hearing all of this theres NO WAY ill ever buy from zycon … i cant believe a company who relys on their customers to keep them in business LIES, purposefully conceals and misleads their patrons !!!!!! it is utterly disgusting for a company to behave this way!!! so much for…
“FAMILY OWNED”…. it sure doesnt mean what it used to

I just picked up my chicken breast order from Zaycon … frozen solid as a rock. Sorry, but in my book, frozen does not equate to fresh. I phoned Zaycon and they offered the following excuse, “it may have been too close to the refrigeration unit”. Sorry, not my problem! I was told I may be in line for a $25 credit but guess what? I’m not ordering from them again! I sent the required e-mail with photos and am anxiously waiting to hear back … I will keep you posted.

I have never had any issues with Zaycon. I have ordered ground beef, bacon and chicken. I have never had any issues with any of it. I like not having to pay outrageous prices at the grocery store. I have not had any date/time changes either. I will continue to use Zaycon in the future.

I wish I had seen this review & all of the comments before I ordered from Zaycon! I’m picking up my very first order this weekend (chicken breasts) & now I’m really worried that it will be a big waste of my hard-earned money. I’ve got my fingers crossed for a good experience but now I’m not nearly as excited about my cheap chicken discovery as I was a few weeks ago when I placed the order.

We baked Zaycon chicken breast this evening and the texture of the breast meat was rubbery. There was something definitely wrong with the meat. I’m stuck with a case of cheap chicken. That’s why I paid so little per pound. Nothing good is cheap there’s days even in bulk. If that chicken was as good I know chicken can be, like when I go to Amish country to get it-that case would have gone for more per pound. The quality of chicken I’m looking for is getting harder to get due to the high demand for purity. Zaycon is truck load meat sales, and the quality doesn’t come close to what they make you think your going to get through their marketing ploy.

I stopped ordering from Zaycon because of the delivery issues. In my case I have a 45 minute drive also and when I arrived for pick-up about middle of the offered time frame there was no truck there. Long story short, they had changed the day also and emailed me with that information but since I do not have a smart phone and was not home all day AND had requested that any messages of that kind come by phone, I didn’t get the message. To say that I was angry would be quite an understatement. So I take off work the next time and go back to the pick up place and this time I find out from someone already there that delivery is delayed by 2 hours. I know no one in the area, it was hot in the car, etc. so I wound up finding a shopping center and spending the next hour and forty-five minutes there. When I got back the truck was there – but only because someone had told them to wait for me (when they arrived in an hour instead of two) because I was shopping and would be back. If that person hadn’t alerted the driver, I would have gone home empty handed again! So I got my chicken and the product was just fine, but my life is way too busy and way too stressful already to add additional stress from the buying of chicken when I can get it at the grocery store on sale for the same price when you figure in the extra trips when they change delivery days, and and the time lost when they don’t keep to a schedule. If they can get their act together I’ll try it again someday, but not till I’m retired and have time to waste.

I’ve seen many preppers on Youtube recommending Zaycon, so I decided to look into it. The Youtube people I watch say the meat is grass-fed, cage-free, non-GMO, antibiotic and growth hormone-free. I started my research on Zaycon’s website, which is rather sparse and doesn’t really say this about its products. It does say the meat is minimally processed, and nothing is added to the meat during processing. It says the chicken is free of hormones, but doesn’t mention antibiotics. They claim the beef is grass-fed but don’t mention anything about hormones or antibiotics in the beef. So I searched around the web and found on another blog that they contacted Zaycon and were told their beef is supplied by National Beef out of Kansas, and the chicken is supplied by Wayne Farms of Georgia. So I next went to the supplier web sites. National Beef says their beef is grain-fed, NOT grass-fed. So that claim seems to come from Zaycon rather than their supplier. Wayne Farms has two grades of chicken products, Wayne Farms Fresh Poultry and Platinum Harvest All Natural Fresh Poultry. I’m fairly certain Zaycon is selling the first one. All they say about their chicken is that it’s hand-deboned and vacuum-packaged. No mention of being cage-free, or free of antibiotics or anything else.
Price-wise it’s not a big savings either. I normally buy my meat in bulk from Sams Club. I can get BLSL chicken breasts there for $1.97/pound, compared to Zaycon’s price in my area of $1.89/pound. From all I can find there is no difference in meat quality, and the size of the Sams breasts are large as well. That’s a difference of $3.20 on 40 pounds, which doesn’t seem worth it with all the processing that needs to be done before storage at home. I open a Sams package, individually wrap my breasts in plastic as is, and freeze. I can’t get higher than 90% lean beef here, but I pay $3.48/pound for that, which seems like it would be in the ballpark if Zaycon sold that, compared to its $3.99/pound for 93%. The 80% beef here is actually cheaper than Zaycon’s, at $2.98/pound compared to their $2.99. So overall, price seems a wash. If the meat isn’t to my satisfaction, I can take it back to Sams for a full refund, not store credit, and I don’t get argued with. After all this research and what I’ve read here I will not buy from them. When I tried to present this info to one of the Youtubers pushing this product I was more or less brushed off and told if I wanted to buy the mystery meat in the store rather than fresh wholesome Zaycon that was my choice. In my opinion, the meat from Zaycon is the same thing, if not worse. I’ve never seen green meat at Sams.

Recently talking with a coworker about her experience with Zaycon Foods made me begin to think twice about my plans to order meats. My coworker is a transplant from the Atlantic region to the South. No stranger to Zaycon foods, she noticed a problem with an order of chicken breast. Pieces with globs of fat, huge breast pieces, and uneven cuts. She is hoping it’s a fluke and that her next order will be one to rave about. I am waiting too.

I just ordered my first case of chicken and I really hope there are no problems with it. I was planning to order some ground beef also but I am having second thoughts since reading these reviews. Are the problems at ALL locations. I’m in the South and I am hoping there are less problems here.

We love Zaycon. We have never had a negative experience with the drivers, delivery time or the product. The ground beef is the best tasting we’ve ever had and it’s lean. The chicken breasts we received are HUGE and taste great. The prices are better than the bulk stores. We even had to call customer service because we were moving out of state and we would not be in the ordered location on the pick up date and they refunded us in full. They were very nice and very helpful. I don’t think that Zaycon can control all those truck drivers and it was probably an isolated situation. They usually do a great job of keeping customers updated per texts when things change. The truck drivers have been personable on every pickup and quick too!

The 93/7 lean ground beef is a must for us, it’s tasty and we love it. When we ran out and had to use the grocery store ground beef, we felt it was more “grainy.” So we do not run out anymore. We also purchase the bacon, and find it to be thick and large, and very tasty. The shrimp is always delicious, and rarely do I get a chance to cook with them, as my kids eat them quickly. The ribs are great, the pork tenderloins are great.

What we don’t love: The chicken breasts – they are too fat and too large, and we don’t like the taste. For some reason they taste different to us. I did not care for the chicken fritters either. They tasted a little odd, its either the chicken or the breading. We only liked it when we poured marinara sauce on it and used in our spaghetti as a chicken parmesan. I’m tempted to try tne chicken thighs and chicken wings, but on the fence since I did not care for the other chicken products.

What’s okay…. the ham. Call me old fashioned, but I love ham and the smoked ham just could not replace the good old spiral baked ham for special events. However, it is good for sandwiches, salad toppings, casseroles, etc. We usually slice it up when we receive, to use in a variety of ways, instead of trying to make into one meal. Otherwise, this is fine. The hot dogs and kielbasa were okay, they were huge, but not a must get.

Ground turkey is new, and I have an order in, however, cannot give information yet. I missed the steak order, and hope to try it later.

We love the ground beef….we like it much better than the grocery store meat…and also the pork tenderloins and breakfast sausages. I agree with you on the chicken…I am not a fan of that. Our experiences have been very good so far….

We have been ordering from Zaycon for a couple years now, and have not had any issues thus far. We’ve ordered chicken several times and have always been pleased with the quality. We also order their bacon, patio steaks, salmon, shrimp and ribs. Again, we’ve had no issues with product quality and no issues with pickup times.

Thank you SOOOO much for your experience. My time, like yours, is extremely valuable and having to drive an hour away for pick up would be a major ordeal if they cancel and reschedule over and over. The GREEN spots made me almost gag though. Who in their right mind would eat that nasty foul looking meat? I wouldn’t. I just bought a new freezer last week and almost ordered from Zaycon, but looked for reviews such as yours. Think I will just wait for Publix to have a sale on meats I can see! LOL. Again, thank you.

are they going to have the chicken in our area soon in somerset Pa i have bought alot of chicken and we really like it would like to continue to get it and what about the wings can i get them too in our area

Thought I would post this because it looks like the refund policy has changed since many of these reviews. My first order turned out great. I had 4 pounds of trimmings, but it worked great for me because I cooked it for special dog treats. I ended up with 36lbs of good breast. A friend of mine says that if you contact Zaycon with your trimming or shortage of weight they will credit your account the difference. I used all the trimmings so I didn’t try for the credit. Hope this review helps because Zaycon has helped my keep meat in the house. I am not a shopper and before I started ordering, we never had meat in the freezer. Now, we always have something to cook. Has saved us a ton because we are not going out to eat as often.

Refund Policy for the Zaycon Website.
We always strive to provide Zaycon families with the highest level of quality and service. To complement our services, we provide a 30-day refund policy to cover any issues that may arise with your purchased product(s).

Order Cancellation
•If you choose to cancel your order within two weeks of your pickup date or if you miss your pickup, a 10% processing/restocking fee will be applied to your order. The processing/restocking fee is waived for refunds applied to your Zaycon Fresh credit account.
•If you miss your pickup please call us immediately to discuss your options. Refunds are not automatic.
•You have up to 6 months after a missed pickup to claim a credit card refund.
•After 6 months of missing a pickup, you may claim (non-transferable) Zaycon Fresh account credit.

Cancelled or Rescheduled Events
•In the unlikely occurrence that one of our sales events is cancelled or your order is no longer available, we will issue a full refund to your original form of payment or to your Zaycon Fresh credit account, whichever you prefer.
•Occasionally the time and/or location of an event is changed due to unforeseen circumstances. We will notify you at the earliest possible time to facilitate your order pickup. Should we reschedule an event more than 24 hours after the originally scheduled time, or should an event be relocated more than 20 miles from the original location, you will have the option of cancelling your order for a full refund or receiving Zaycon Fresh account credit.

I have purchased the bacon and forgot about it. I missed the pickup date and the gentleman delivering called me and let me pick it up at the next stop. The bacon was great ! !

I purchased the 93/7 beef and it was very good as well.

I also purchased the chicken breast they were the best quality and very large. I have just ordered 2 more boxes of the chicken breast chicken breast. Next time I will try the pulled pork and the 80/20 beef.

I placed my first ( and, at this point my last) order with Zaycon in April for their bacon. 3 months is a long time to wait for a delivery. Who knows what they will be doing 3 months out? But I took a chance, anyway. Today was the pickup day. But Zaycon changed the delivery location on me, so I missed the pickup. I called the phone number and was told that they had sent emails about a change of locations. Unfortunately, Zaycon literally floods my inbox with spam about their products. Must be at least 3-4 emails a week. So, being in the habit of deleting them without reading, I must have deleted the notification of change of location. Thus I ran into their above “new” policy on refunds. My fault. Should have gone on their website to read all of this before ordering. My misgivings are 1) having to order weeks ahead is difficult to plan, 2) emails for changes of location instead of phone messages ( phone messages can be automated also BTW), and 3) the 10% “restocking” fee which is waived if you opt for a credit to your account. Really? So if you leave you money with them they don’t incur any expense for restocking? I doubt they restock anyway. Probably are able to sell to someone at one of their delivery locations. I told the lady to charge me the 10% and give me the rest of my money back.

I agree with some other comments here that one can get most of this merchandise locally for an equally good price without all of the inconveniences that are involved with dealing with Zaycon.

I just heard about Zaycon foods and found this blog while researching them. I am still on the fence about ordering but there is something I wanted to make note of regarding the posts on this blog, particularly in reference to the chicken breasts. Many people have noted that the breasts seem unusually large and that this must indicate that the chicken is given hormones. Many people seem concerned about getting hormone free chicken. It has already been mentioned in several posts, but it bears repeating because people still seem to have this concern. There is absolutely ZERO chicken in this country that has been given hormones. It is illegal. Whatever you may think about Zaycon foods or any provider of chicken, you can rest assured that it does not and never has had any hormones. I know that some companies print on their chicken product labels that their chicken contains no hormones and that they are doing you a favor, but it’s just like companies that print “gluten free” on products that never contained any gluten in the first place. Antibiotics are a different issue, but contrary to what some have posted, that would not cause unusually large breasts.

I have been purchasing from Zaycon for about a year now. I’ve purchased chicken, ground beef, ham, shrimp and bacon. ALL these items are as good as, actually better, than what I buy at Publix, Kroger and Costco.

The shrimp is the most tender I’ve ever had, so much so that dinner guests comment on it. The burgers made from the ground beef is also tender and tasty.

The chicken breasts are plump and juicy. We lightly season and grill about 10 lbs when we first get them, once they cool we seal in food saver bags and freeze. This makes excellent quick salad and pasta meals and they are still moist and tender once thawed.

I am excited to soon receive pulled pork and pork tenderloins. I now have faith in Zaycon so I know it’s going to be delicious.

I am so happy that Zaycon has expanded their offerings. With proper planning they will soon be my ONLY source for meats.

Thanks for the honest review, and and a place for people to post their negative experiences without being deleted. A friend sent this out saying the beef was grass-fed, and I couldn’t believe the price. It’s not grass-fed, it’s the same conventional beef in the store. For what it is, it’s not a good deal on beef.

I would have been afraid the other chicken would be bad as well since they were all in the same shipment. Like moldy bread. It’s said that if one piece is moldy the whole loaf will be even if you can’t see the mold. I was hoping their chicken was free range and fed non GMO feed. But it isn’t. I wanted so much to order from Zaycon, but after your post, I think not!

Got their ground beef which we have always done but this time it was frozen. Disgusting. Went to defrost one of the 2# packages and it was bleeding all over the plate because the seal was broken. Tried another, then a 3rd and all the same. Meat turned gray color and tons of blood. I am guessing this crap came from China. We will never deal with them again. Now we have 40# of beef to trash and when I called to complain, the girl said to just give it to a charity, get the receipt and they will reimburse us. WTF? What kind of jerk would ask me to give tainted meat to a charity?
I would never recommend this company to anyone…..ever.

I have been buying from Zycon for more than a year. I have no complaints. Delivery was on time and the product was great. I have had 3 orders of chicken and have not experienced anything negative. The chicken is moist and clean.

I have ordered the hamburger and it now comes frozen in 2# packages much easier to deal with vs the fresh packed 10# tube I received before. (Which you have to divide) The bacon is so good!

Waiting for the turkey breasts next week. This is the first time I am ordering this.

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Hi! I'm Meg, mom of 6, wife, blogger, future recovering crazy cat lady, frugalista, and a Floridian living in Portland, Oregon. You can read about me, my family, and our frugal journey on my About page! I look forward to sharing and hearing from you!